A Journey to Gluten Free and Traditional Food Lifestyle

I have always believed that our body is designed to heal itself if given the proper conditions. I use this belief even today, while working through the effects of gluten on my body. When I first began this journey, I researched many things and sites and found several people who have helped me on my way to optimal health. Today, I would like to introduce you to one of them in the hopes that you can find what she has to teach as helpful as it was to me.

Jenny McGruther is a food educator and the creator of the traditional food website Nourished Kitchen. She teaches workshops on traditional foods, fermentation, and food activism. Her philosophy on food is focusing on combining sustainability, balance, tradition, and community involvement. She lives with her family in Colorado, where she and her husband started and managed a farmer's market for seven years.

When I first discovered her website, I thought that I lead a fairly healthy lifestyle. Through her articles and workshops, I came to realize my diet was actually closer to the Standard American Diet. If I continued with the way I was eating, I would not give my body the proper conditions to allow it to heal and give me optimal health. So my walk toward a traditional and gluten free lifestyle began here. Although I am not completely there yet, habit can be very hard to break, but her philosophy is one of many that has been crucial in helping with the change.

Her class “Get Cultured” helped me to realize that I need cultured food to get natural probiotics to help bring my gut flora into balance again, which is integral in healing a leaky gut. Although taking probiotic supplements can have some benefit, they will not have the same probiotics and the wild ferments found in lacto-fermented and homemade cultured products. In this course, you will learn how to make sour kraut, lacto-fermented vegetables, salsas, and condiments. Although I had already been making my own yogurt and sour cream, I was surprised to learn how many other cultured products can be made from milk or milk alternatives. Who knew there were so many! She has so much information to share. Go to her site and check it out.

I would like to congratulate her on her recent book, The Nourished Kitchen: Farm to Table recipes for the Traditional Food Lifestyle. I am excited that my copy cam e last week and I get to start using it. If you are looking for a good resource to start a traditional food lifestyle, I would recommend this book. It can be found at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Indiebound, Google Books, and iBooks. (note: I do not receive any payment for this recommendation).